The Sneinton Bollard Children
by MizJoely
Summary: Molly and Sherlock on a case in Nottingham. What could possibly go wrong? Well for starters, a broken-down car and a "there's only one bed" stay at a small inn, all while they're still tip-toeing around the events at Sherrinford. And then of course, there's the creepy, dead-eyed bollard children outside the local school, two of whom look disturbingly familiar to Sherlock...
1. Road Hazards

_A/N: Inspired by an article about the Sneinton Bollard Children (google it; you'll find I don't do their creepiness justice!) Read over by members of the Sherlolly discord and saffysmom from tumblr. Hope you enjoy my attempt at an actual horror story! (But since it's Sherlolly of COURSE there's mutual pining and post-Sherrinford angst thrown into the mix.)_

* * *

Molly shuddered as they drove past the school, turned her head away from the window and tried (foolishly and ultimately unsuccessfully) to distract Sherlock by asking to borrow his mobile since hers had died two minutes outside of Sneinton. They were in Nottingham for a case, John being laid up with a twisted ankle after stepping wrongly on one of Rosie's pull-toys, and until this very minute Molly had been thoroughly enjoying herself.

"What is it? Is it the bollards?" Sherlock, perceptive as always, asked as he handed over his mobile (despite obviously knowing her request to be a ruse).

"You really can't turn off the deduction thing, can you?" she asked resignedly. "Not even long enough for us to pass the school and start on our way back to London."

He shrugged, eyes on the road but twinkling with humor that matched the smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Nope," he finally said, popping the P with far too much relish. "Impossible. You should know that by now. Besides," he added without drawing breath, "they're just traffic bollards. For safety purposes, established by -"

"Yes, Sherlock, thank you, I know what they're for," Molly snapped, still unnerved by the dead-eyed stares on the child-shaped bollards they'd finally passed. "But they're creepy. Like something from a horror film - you know, with a group of drunk teens having a sleepover at an abandoned orphanage, and the ghosts of the children who died in the fire that shut the place down all come to life like, like evil ventriloquist's dummies and start axe-murdering everyone till there's one survivor and she just barely manages to stop the ghosts from possessing her and-"

"Good lord, Molly, how many horror movies have you seen?" Sherlock somehow managed to sound annoyed and (yes, she'd use the word, dammit) horrified at the same time.

"All of them," Molly replied flippantly, her good humour somewhat restored as they continued down the road, leaving the creepy little bollards well behind them. "The ghosts come out of the telly as well," she added, just to tease.

"Tellies? In an abandoned, half-burnt former orphanage? When did it burn down? Why are there still television sets there for the ghosts to come out of?"

"The teenagers brought one," Molly said without batting an eyelash. But she did let out a giggle, feeling her earlier apprehension fade completely away as she traded ridiculous banter with Sherlock. "A battery operated one," she added, forestalling his question about how they powered it.

Sherlock, for his part, was relieved that Molly's atypical fit of the willies (as his father would call it) had passed. He wasn't about to admit that he, too, found the bollards disturbing, although not exactly for the same reason she did - yes, their 'dead-eyed stares' were creepy, but there were two that had him fighting the urge to gun the accelerator in order to drive past the zone as quickly as possible - and simultaneously had him twitching for a cigarette.

The one of the little boy with auburn hair and badly painted freckles to match. The one of the little girl with brown hair and eyes that peeling paint gave the illusion of heterocromia to - he was still fighting shudders at the sight of those two, which reminded him unnervingly of the fuzzy, still-not-entirely-recovered memories he had of his long dead friend, Victor Trevor and - worse still - of a young Eurus.

He was just pleased that, despite being the one person who always managed to see right through him, this time Molly hadn't twigged to his unease. She was no doubt too busy fighting her own reactions to the (perfectly harmless, there-for-a-valid-reason) safety bollards.

He wanted so badly to reach over and take her hand in his, give it a comforting squeeze and perhaps drop a soft kiss on her knuckles, but as always he restrained himself. This was a case, after all, even if it only required a bit of minor research once they were back in London to wrap it up, if his suspicions about the suspect were correct (which he knew they were, but when working with the police one must always remember to dot t's and cross i's). It was hardly a romantic getaway, even if they had enjoyed a surprisingly good pub supper after wrapping up the tedious interviews with police, suspect, and victim's family and friends.

However, just as he opened his mouth to say something flippant in response to her comment about battery-operated tellies, the car gave a peculiar shudder; as he eased his foot off the accelerator and onto the brake, it shuddered again and ground to a halt as he managed to ease them over to the kerb.

He pulled the key from the ignition and was about to pop open the bonnet when billows of smoke started pouring out of it. He and Molly scrambled out of the car and onto the pavement; as he contemplated the wisdom of opening the bonnet despite the very real possibility that the engine was on fire and he might get burned, Molly grabbed his wrist and shook her head in a vehement 'no'.

"I'm calling 999, Sherlock. What if it's some kind of booby trap or a bomb or something?"

Since he could hardly scoff at the possibility of someone wanting to blow him up, he merely nodded agreement and stood, arms crossed and scowling and absolutely _gasping _for a cigarette while she reported their issue to Emergency Services.

Two hours later the car it was all sorted as best it could be: smoke extinguished (no actual fire, thankfully), car towed to a local garage where it would remain until the part arrived the next morning, and he and Molly driven by the responding (and really very obliging) police officer to a nearby bed-and-breakfast which a quick google search had shown to be the only place with a room available in Sneinton due to some business convention or arts fair or something he deleted as soon as he informed Molly of the situation.

"They only have the one room," he cautioned her as they waved good-bye (well, Molly waved and that was good enough) to the officer who'd driven them there. "And it's probably a double bed, in a small place like this, rather than two twins."

Molly shrugged, trying (and failing, at least to his keen eyes) to act as if it was no big deal. "Well, you're the one who's always saying it's never twins," she joked. "And it's not like we haven't ever shared a bed before."

As if he needed reminding of the many, many times he'd commandeered her bed - or simply joined her in it after she'd fallen asleep.

"Then it'll be just like old times," he agreed with false heartiness as he escorted her inside, but his mind was racing. They hadn't shared a bed - he hadn't so much as set foot in her flat - since the morning after Sherrinford, when he'd come over to explain exactly why he'd had to force those three little words out of her.

Oh, she'd forgiven him, of course she had, and they'd agreed that it would be best to put it all behind them and forge on as friends, but lately Sherlock had begun to regret that decision. His inner Mary Watson, who'd berated him for his cowardice, cheered at that mental admission. He did his level best to ignore her now just as he'd done then, but it was difficult when she was whispering in his mind that this was a God-given opportunity to confess to Molly just how wrong he'd been and beg her to become his romantic partner as well as his (very, very) dear friend.

Once the tedious paperwork was taken care of, the clerk handed them their room key and small packet of toiletries the inn kept on hand for guests who might have forgotten such things as toothbrushes and toothpaste, then directed them up the stairs to the top floor.

"Oh," he added, as they started to leave the front room-cum-lobby, "just, er, one thing...if you, ah, happen to hear any...odd noises...from outside? During the night?" He gave a nervous laugh. "It's, um, probably just some of the local kids." He waved toward the back of the inn. "The school is just across the field and, well, you know how kids can be."

He shrugged and gave them a smile as if it were no big deal, but Sherlock found that highly unconvincing; something was going on here, but it wasn't the mystery he was being paid to solve and he owed it to Molly to get her safely back to London without dragging her into some ridiculous adventure she hadn't signed up for.

"Well, this is cosy," she said as they entered the small room they'd been given, tucked up under the eaves. But her voice and eyes were too bright; she was uneasy, just as uneasy as he was although he doubted it was for the same reason. "The bed's not much smaller than mine, shouldn't be too, erm, crowded."

"Don't worry about it, if I do sleep tonight I'll make do with the chair and ottoman." He nodded at the sitting area in front of the window and shrugged his laptop bag off his shoulder and onto the bedside-table. "I've got some research to do to wrap up the case. You just go to bed whenever you're ready."

He studiously refused to look at her as he toed off his shoes, laid his suit jacket across the back of the chair and rolled up his sleeves.

Molly said nothing, but he heard what sounded like a defeated sigh as she headed down the hall to bath in order to ready herself for bed.

_Idiot, _he berated himself as he opened up his laptop and began half-heartedly scrolling through his emails. _Mary's right; this is the perfect opportunity to let Molly know I think I'm ready for something more in our relationship than just friendship._

Mary's voice, as clear in his mind as if she were standing next to him, said, _So what's stopping you? _

He signed and ran agitated fingers through his hair. "She deserves better," he muttered aloud.

That seemed to silence her, and he spent the next several hours engrossed in tracing the family history of his main suspect, barely noticing when Molly said goodnight and settled under the covers of the small bed.

Not long after midnight he felt his eyes burning and realized he'd read the same line of text over twice without comprehending it, and reluctantly decided that yes, he would need to get some sleep after all. Especially with a 2 ½ hour drive back to London in the morning.

He tried to sleep in the chair, he honestly did, but a million tiny defects seemed to make themselves known as soon as he leaned back and closed his eyes. There was a particular spring just under his shoulders that seemed determined to dig its way into his back; the seat cushion seemed to sag to his left, leaving him feeling off-kilter; and the ottoman, which had seemed perfectly adequate when he'd first sized it up, appeared to have shrunk in size now that he was actually trying to use it. First his left foot slipped off, then the right, until with a muffled curse he jumped up, realising he would have to give into the inevitable.

He debated stripping down to his pants but ultimately decided against it; even if he did (_maybe, possibly, all right - yes, definitely_) want to explore a relationship with Molly, he rather thought it would be in poor taste to introduce the subject in such a manner.

Contemplating all the ways things could go wrong if he and Molly did become romantically involved kept him morbidly entertained for a good half-hour before he finally drifted off to sleep.


	2. Caution: Children at Play

_A/N: Here we have part 2 of this (hopefully) creepy little horror fic. I hope you've enjoyed reading the story, and remember that I treasure all my reviews. A special thanks to stlgeekgirl and ukthxbye for reading this second chapter over for me. If anyone's interested, I can add a third "chapter" showing the original version of chapter 2 and you can decide for yourselves which one you like better._

* * *

_Come play with us, Sherlock._

Childish voices, barely heard - whispers? Or just very far away?

Sherlock shifted uneasily in the bed, one hand unconsciously making its way to rest on Molly's waist as his dreaming mind struggled to make sense of what he was hearing.

_Come play with us, Sherlock. We miss you._

Familiar voices - whose? With a suddenness that startled him awake, he realized who it was.

_Victor. _

And...Eurus?

Calling him.

He lifted his head, listening, unconsciously tightening his hold on Molly's waist, but only silence greeted him. Just a nightmare, he concluded, eyelids drooping as he fell back into sleep.

_Sherrrrlockkkkk..._

Both voices now, Victor and Eurus, sing-songing his name in unison. "Sod off, you little pricks, it's bedtime not playtime," he mumbled in his sleep. "Not been playtime for years now."

_It was never playtime for us, though, was it, Sherlock?_ Eurus' voice was mournful, but edged with a sliver or viciousness that had Sherlock twisting in his sleep._ That's why I had to take Redbeard away from you. If only you'd played with me, Sherlock, things would be so different. Wouldn't they, Redbeard?_

_So different._ Victor's voice was wistful. _We miss you Sherlock, we both do. Don't you miss us? Don't you wish you could do it all over again, do it right this time?_

He tried to say no, to deny that he felt any such thing, but it was impossible. Deep down he'd known it was his own fault that Redbeard had died in that well: he hadn't been smart enough, he hadn't been compassionate enough or understanding of his little sister's needs (_never mind that he was only a six-year-old at the time_), everything that had happened was due to his own shortcomings.

If only there was a way to make up for it all, to relive his childhood and fix the mistakes he'd made…

_Come with us, Sherlock. We can help you, we can fix this for you, we can make you forget all the pain you're feeling, _the childish voices urged. _Come with usssss..._

Stumbling, unable to focus, to concentrate on anything but the urging of those voices, he rose from the bed, made his way to the window and pressed his hands against the glass. There, in the grass below, their forms indistinct in the darkness and rising fog, were two small figures. Children, of course; Eurus and Victor. But was it? Something about them seemed…off. Wrong. They stood there, stiff and eerily still, their features impossible to make out but - he squinted - it looked as if their heads flowed directly onto their torsos, no neck to speak of, arms so tightly held against their bodies as to be nearly invisible -

As if they weren't actually human.

"The bollards," he muttered. Impossible, wasn't it? But the mist cleared, the moon peeking through the scudding clouds and temporarily casting the back garden in a silvery glow, and yes, they weren't children at all, just a pair of the unsettling cement bollards painted to (poorly) mimic reality. Then the clouds returned, the silver light vanishing as the fog rose up, thicker than ever.

_When you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth._

The impossible was staring him in the face.

_Sherrrrlockkkkk..._

He shuddered at the sound of his name coming from those immobile, disconcerting figures, squeezed his eyes shut, and told himself he was still asleep. Still dreaming.

_Come with us, Sherlock. Join us, forget your pain, make it up to us, join us, join us, join us..._

Moving as if in a dream - unsure he wasn't actually having the most vivid nightmare of his life - Sherlock allowed the cajoling words to draw him away from the window, across the room, and out the door.

**oOo**

"Sherlock?" Molly sat up, rubbing sleep from her eyes, not sure what had awoken her. She was alone in the bed, but even in the darkened room she could see that Sherlock was no longer sitting in the chair by the window. She slipped out from under the covers, shivering a bit at the chill of the room; the fire they'd built up in the small fireplace had died to a smolder. Perhaps he'd gone to get some more wood from the clerk? No, the metal rack was still half-full - the bathroom, perhaps?

No. Empty. Where the hell was he? She hurried back to the room, nearly tripping over his shoes. Now that she looked more closely, she could see his Belstaff hung on the back of the door, his suit jacket hanging on the chair. Where could he have gone in the middle of the night wearing only his shirt, trousers and socks?

"Only one way to find out," she counseled herself. She grabbed her coat and handbag, hopping a bit as she slipped into her shoes, and headed for the door filled with what she tried to tell herself was an unreasonable dread in her heart.

He'd probably got a call from Lestrade or John or...she paused on the threshold, turned back to the side table where his laptop rested. Lying atop it was his mobile.

The feeling of dread intensified. No matter how much of a rush he might have been to leave, no matter how urgent the case, there was absolutely no way he would have left his mobile behind.

She rushed out of the room and down the stairs, knowing with every fiber of her being that Sherlock was in trouble.

And she was the only one who could save him.

**oOo**

It was cold; why was it cold? Sherlock shivered, rubbed his hands across his arms, blinking as the fog in his mind started to clear. He looked around, taking longer than it should have for him to recognize his surroundings.

He was standing on the pavement in front of the school he and Molly had driven by earlier in the day, at the end of the line of cement bollards painted - poorly, unconvincingly - like children. Safety bollards, nothing more, but in the eerie light of the moon, with the mist rising around them, they took on a far more sinister aspect.

As if they were there to keep him in, rather than meant to warn passing motorists to be careful.

He shook his head, irritated at himself for allowing such superstitious thoughts to take even the most shallow of roots in his mind. The bollards were just bollards, cement posts. Immovable. There were - he looked carefully - yes, eight of them exactly as there had been before. None missing.

He shook his head again, scoffing at himself for having fancied, even for a second, that two of the bollards had somehow come to life and, what? Lured him here for some evil purpose? Clearly he'd had a nightmare which had led to sleep-walking, a disorder from which he'd suffered, according to his mother, for the first year after Musgrave burnt down.

His eyes were drawn back to the bollards, brow furrowed as he realized there _was _something off. Not something missing, but something added. A hole, to be exact, which had absolutely _not _been there earlier in the day.

He felt his heart clench in sudden, inexplicable terror at the sight of that hole. So a maintenance crew had dug a new post-hole, undoubtedly for the installation of a new bollard, what of it? All he had to do was cross the field back to the inn, drink several bracing cups of coffee and perhaps snag a cigarette or two from the night clerk, and let Molly do the driving in the morning when they headed back to London.

_Come join us, Sherlock._ _Victor misses you. Don't you want to be with him again?_

He started at the sound of Eurus' voice close by his side - or was it in his mind?

He shivered as Victor's voice joined that if his sister. _Join us, join us, join us, we miss you, Sherlock, don't you want to be a child again, you know you do, you want to remember all the things you missed when you deleted us from your memories..._

His arms dangled loosely by his sides; staring straight ahead, he moved as if in a trance, walking slowly, steadily toward the newly dug post-hole. He felt strangely at peace, as if whatever was about to happen was not only inevitable, but something he deserved.

Punishment for his many, many sins.

He didn't turn his eyes away from his destination even when he felt a pair of cold, clammy hands slip into each of his. He didn't need to look down to know what he'd see; Eurus on one side, Victor on the other, leading him toward his destiny.

Taking them to join him, where he belonged[1] . Where he would be safe from the pain, numb, voiceless, his brain finally, finally stopping, the motor no longer out of control, no more cares, no more worries no more…

He halted at the edge of the hole, conscious suddenly of a voice, deep within his mind, screaming at him. Mary's voice. _Wake up, Sherlock, you idiot! This isn't right, this isn't what you deserve! Your life has value, remember? I didn't save you just for you to sacrifice yourself like this! WAKE UP!_

He blinked. Backed up a step. Tried to move further away, but found himself held fast by the tight grips on his hands.

Looked down at the two young faces staring up at his.

Blanched at the sight of Eurus, not as he knew her to be - alive, adult, insane - but instead a ghastly animated corpse, her skin and hair and clothing all blackened and burnt as if she'd actually died in one of the fires she'd set.

And Victor, Victor as he must have appeared after he died in that well - soaked to the bone, clothing rotting away from bloated, mottled flesh, water gushing, gushing, gushing from his eyes and ears and nose and mouth…

He tried to wrench free of their grasps, tried to call out for help, but no sound escaped his lips. He felt the stillness trying to stifle his thoughts again, but Mary's voice, faint and frantic, kept it from completely taking hold once more, at least not until it was drowned out by the sound of rising water, hissing and roaring, until it was all he could hear, her last, nearly silent cry of _Molly wouldn't want this!_ vanishing like a drowning swimmer going down beneath the waves.

He took a step forward. Another.

Into the post hole.

_We've missed you so, Sherlock, you'll be with us forever now, don't worry, we'll never let you be alone again, you'll see..._

His feet were cold, wet; where was the water coming from? Victor, he realised. It was gushing from his every pore, from his eyes and ears, nose and mouth, pooling on the pavement and falling into the hole. He shivered, tried once again to move, but the water was ice, rising to entrap him, to hold him in place as his body cooled and hardened into cement; he could see it now, a new bollard with dark painted curls and blue-green eyes, staring blankly at the passing motorists from now until they were finally knocked down and broken up decades in the future, until there was nothing left of Sherlock Holmes except memories and the mystery of his disappearance, not that anyone would care…

No. Molly would care. John would care, and Rosie and Lestrade...with a wrenching force he managed to cry out, just once, but his arms were frozen to his side and he could feel himself shrinking, shrinking, shrinking...

The screech of tires and the flare of headlights seemed to break whatever hellish spell he'd been under; he found he was able to move again, to throw up his arms to cover his face, to turn his head away as the speeding vehicle came to a screeching halt directly in front of him - and to climb, stumbling and awkward and painfully, from out of the hole in which he'd been standing.

_Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!_

The howl of the two childish voices seemed louder than the roar of the car's engine to his ears. He backed away from them, raised his hands defensively as they flew at him, faces twisted in rage, hands curved into claws reaching for him, their voices in his mind demanding that he stay with them, forever, forever, forever…

"Get away from him you little horrors!" They skittered away from him before Molly's rage, from the cricket bat she swung at them. He tried to tell her it was no use, that if they were spirits the bat would simply go right through them, that if they were bollards come to life she'd crack the wood on their cement forms, but his voice had left him again, along with the ability to do more than just stand there and watch what to unfold.

Molly, like some avenging angel, the bat gripped tightly in both hands and raised above her shoulder, glowered at the two childish figures. "You can't have him," she said fiercely. "He's mine, not yours! Go back to, to whatever hellpit spawned you! You can't have him!" She screamed those last words, and he felt his eyes widen in surprise as it seemed to affect the two pseudo-children; were they actually shrinking or was it his imagination? He had no way to judge reality from dream any longer.

_He's ours, _he heard Eurus hiss. _He left us, he forgot us, he doesn't deserve your love, he never has and he never will!_

"Bollocks!" Molly roared, swinging the bat again. As expected it went clean through their solid-appearing forms, causing ripples as if they were made of smoke but otherwise doing no damage.

Her words, on the other hand, seemed more powerful, more dangerous than her (borrowed, as was the car, likely from the clerk at the inn) weapon of choice. The more she denied them, the more she defended him, the smaller they seemed to become until, with a suddenness that left him gaping, the two simply...vanished.

He shook his head, lifted a trembling hand to his forehead to wipe away the beads of sweat that had gathered there. He looked at the line of bollards as Molly rushed to his side, the cricket bat landing on the pavement with a dull thud.

There were eight of them, just as before, but two - a boy with red hair, a girl with dark brown hair - were glowering at him through glowing red eyes. _You can't run from your past forever, _he heard their joined voices whisper in his mind. _You can't run from US forever, Sherlock Holmes._

Then Molly was there, her arms wrapped tightly around him, shaking him none too gently and demanding that he look at her. "Look at me, Sherlock, talk to me! Are you all right? Did they, did those..._things_...did they hurt you?"

He shook his head, wrapped his arms around her as he shivered. "No," he said hoarsely, when she continued to demand that he speak, her words frantic, panicky, but unmistakably caring. She loved him; how could he have allowed himself to forget that for even a single moment? And her love came without conditions; he might not feel he deserved her, but, he realised in a flash of understanding that took his breath away, that didn't matter.

What mattered was that _she _thought he deserved her. That she accepted him, warts and all as the old saying went.

She loved him, and he loved her, and there was absolutely nothing more important than that love.

"I love you," he said, finally looking down at her. He thought he heard a final despairing howl echo through his mind, but it cut off as suddenly as if someone had shut off a radio program - and when he looked again at the two bollards, the sullen red glow had died from their eyes and they were nothing more than a pair of poorly painted replicas of children just like the all the rest.

"I love you," he repeated, gripping her arms in sudden urgency. "I love you, Molly Hooper, and I've been an idiot to think I could hold you at arm's length, to pretend that friendship was all I wanted or needed from you. Can you forgive me?"

She laughed, although it was tinged with hysteria as she nodded. "Of course, you daft man. I love you, too." The she tiptoed up and kissed him, a soft, gentle, loving kiss like none he'd ever experienced before, and his heart felt as if it would explode with joy.

"I love you," she said when the kiss ended. Then she looked over at the row of bollards. "But what the fucking HELL just happened here?'

He had no answer for her, just hugged her tight and thanked a God whose existence he no longer entirely discounted that it was over.


	3. Alternate Chapter 2

_Here is the original start to the 2nd chapter. It still ends the same after Molly's arrival, but the build up to that moment is pretty different. Let me know what you think - did I go with the right ending or do you like this version better?_

* * *

_Come play with us, Sherlock._

Childish voices, barely heard - whispers? Or just very far away?

Sherlock shifted uneasily in the bed, one hand unconsciously making its way to rest on Molly's waist as his dreaming mind struggled to make sense of what he was hearing.

_Come play with us, Sherlock. We miss you._

Familiar voices - whose? With a suddenness that startled him awake, he realized who it was.

Victor.

And...Eurus?

Calling him.

He lifted his head, listening, unconsciously tightening his hold on Molly's waist, but only silence greeted him. Just a nightmare, Sherlock. Just a nightmare.

So he kept telling himself.

Until the voices started up again.

He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, being careful not to disturb Molly, and scrubbed his hands over his face in an effort to come more fully awake.

Strange; it didn't usually take this much effort unless he'd been drugged, and he hadn't eaten or drunk anything - or inhaled any odd fumes - surely this wasn't another Baskerville? No, no, he dismissed the thought as he stumbled to his feet, stretching and yawning. It was just the usual post-case lassitude, hitting him earlier than usual.

_Sherrrrlockkkkk..._

Both voices now, Victor and Eurus, sing-songing his name in unison. "Sod off, you little pricks, it's bedtime not playtime," he muttered, closing his eyes and leaning his head on his hands.

_Sherrrrlockkkkk..._

His eyes snapped open, and he found himself inexplicably standing in front of the window. Fantastic, now he was sleepwalking. Or was he? Experimentally he gave himself a sharp pinch, wincing at the immediate pain. No, he was definitely awake even if he hadn't arrived at the window in that state.

_Sherrrrlockkkkk..._

Those childish voices again, whispering through his mind but at the same time definitely coming from outdoors. He looked down squinting in the darkness, and saw the vague, misty forms of two children staring back up at him.

He blinked, shook his head, and looked again. Yes, definitely two children in the back garden, standing side by side in the rising mist. As the moon showed itself briefly from behind the scudding clouds and shone on their faces, he started back with a hiss of indrawn breath: the girl looked exactly like the only remaining photograph of his sister at age 5, with her hair in bunches and wearing a light summer frock and the boy...the boy had red hair and freckles and was wearing a child's pirate costume. As Sherlock continue to gape in disbelief, the boy - Victor? - smiled up at him and waved a wooden sword as if inviting him to come down and join them.

"Redbeard," he breathed out, one hand pressing against the window as he struggled to reconcile the sight of the two small figures with the cold reality that logic reminded him was the truth: that Victor was dead and Eurus was grown and locked away in Sherrinford Prison and there was no way he was actually seeing what he thought he was seeing.

Someone was doing this to him. Someone was using his past to try and terrorize him.

That thought galvanized him into action. So, they wanted him to come and play did they? Very well, then, that was exactly what he would do.

Sherlock Holmes never backed off from The Game.

He glared down at the two figures, holding up his hand in a 'wait there' gesture. But even as he reached for his jacket, the mist thickened and hid them from view until a sudden gust of wind dissipated it.

The two children were gone.

He swore under his breath and hurriedly threw on his shoes and Belstaff. He paused a moment, unsure if he should wake Molly or not, but decided to let her sleep.

She didn't need to be drawn any further into this ridiculous attempt to gas-light him into believing in the supernatural. No, he would take care of it himself and be back in bed before she ever noticed he was gone. Confront the culprits and whoever had put them up to their pathetic attempt at 'haunting' him, and have the satisfaction of seeing the miscreants thrown into jail for Child Endangerment at the very least.

_Come join us, Sherlock. Victor misses you. Don't you want to be with him again?_

He grit his teeth and hurried down the stairs, pausing only to assure himself that the clerk - the cousin of the owner, resentful of the fact that she'd inherited the lion's share instead of him, stealing from the till whenever he could get away with it - was sound asleep on the cot set up in the small office. The reek of alcohol and the empty bottle of gin told Sherlock that the man would continue sleeping soundly, so he silently exited the building via the back door, determined to put an end to this ridiculous charade.

He hurried through the darkened garden, debating whether or not to use his pocket torch in order to keep from stumbling in the dark, but ultimately deciding against it. The mist had completely dissipated in the time it had taken him to exit the building, and the moon shone brilliantly down.

The gate was open, swinging lightly on its hinges; more evidence that he was dealing with living beings rather than spirits or revenants or whatever the two children were supposed to be. He snorted derisively; the reality of the world as it existed was more than enough for him, no ghosts need apply.

He reached the chain-link fence surrounding the school-yard without encountering either of his juvenile tormentors, and gave a satisfied smile as he saw another opened gate. _Gotcha,_ he thought as he caught sight of a discarded hair ribbon exactly like the ones the Eurus-lookalike had been wearing. Catching it up, he shoved it into his pocket and hurried through the school-yard toward the building.

The sound of childish giggles drew him cautiously around the corner until he found himself facing the road he and Molly had traversed earlier that day. The line of bollards were even more eerie in the moonlight, standing like a row of motionless sentinels, not to warn passing motorists to be careful, but for some far more sinister reason.

Such as blocking people - himself? - from making a break for it.

He shook his head, irritated at himself for allowing such superstitious thoughts to take even the most shallow of roots in his mind. The bollards were just bollards, painted to resemble children in order to remind drivers that they needed to be extra cautious in the school zone. There were eight of them, and at the end…

He felt his heart clench in sudden, inexplicable terror at the sight of a newly-dug post-hole. Another bollard was going to be put in, that was all, so why did he tremble at the sight of it?

_Come join us, Sherlock. Victor misses you. Don't you want to be with him again?_

Eurus's voice, repeating the words he'd heard on the stairs of the inn, with Victor whispering in the background. _Join us, join us, join us, we miss you, Sherlock, don't you want to be a child again, you know you do, you want to remember all the things you missed when you deleted us from your memories..._

He didn't realize he was keening in terror, that his hands were clutched to the sides of his head as his feet, without conscious volition, marched him closer and closer to the freshly dug post-hole. He felt someone tugging at his coat; looking down, his eyes widened in horror as he saw Eurus, not as he knew her to be - alive, adult, insane - but instead a ghastly animated corpse, her skin and hair and clothing all burnt as if she actually had died in a fire.

A tug on the other side pulled his attention away from the horrific sight, and he gasped aloud as he saw Victor as he must have appeared after he died in that well - soaked to the bone, clothing rotting away from bloated, mottled flesh, water gushing, gushing, gushing from his eyes and ears and nose and mouth…

He stumbled, throwing his hands out to stop him from landing face-first on the pavement, his feet firmly planted in the post-hole. _We've missed you so, Sherlock, you'll be with us forever now, don't worry, we'll never let you be alone again, you'll see..._

He jerked upright, breaking into a cold sweat as he realized that was as far as he could move; his feet were frozen, literally frozen to the ground as the water still pouring from the Victor-thing by his side began filling the hole, turning to ice as he watched through horror-filled eyes. He tried to cry out, to call for help, but his vocal cords were frozen as well, frozen by terror or by whatever ghostly force now had control of his body and he was going to die here, he was going to become one of the bollards, standing guard over the school forever, never seeing John or Rosie or Molly ever again…

The screech of tires and the flare of headlights brought him out of his mounting despair; he threw his arms up to cover his face and turned his head away as the speeding vehicle came to a screeching halt directly in front of him.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

The howl of the two childish voices seemed louder than the roar of the car's engine…

* * *

_Aaaaand the rest is the same as in the original ending. Do le me know what you think!_


End file.
